Nifty Noodles/ Workin' Again
9/25/05 West Coast Office..
Just returned from Valencia… an hour and a half drive away for a quick couple of church services at Living Grace Fellowship. It’s a five year celebration of meeting for church in an elementary school. It’s the third gig in a week… an all time high for me this year I think… things are picking up and the Christmas CD is selling very briskly since I got the product last week. I leave on Wednesday for Nashville and then San Jose for three concerts over the weekend… I feel like I’ve survived a famine of sorts in the last few months.

In order to make a career I’ve had to span some long dry spells with no gigs… but this year tops the list of workless weekends. Being busy is helping my attitude though and with the Joy To The World tour and BB Kings booking and the Hurricane relief concert in Nov. … wow I guess we’ll finish this year as strong as any year ever. I’ve never remembered a tougher year in my life with so many ups and downs and dramatic changes. I can’t say ..I’m disappointed or bored here.

I just never know what a day may hold. It was a long commute to work but this weekend I was back home on the same day I left… how cool..

O.K. so theresthat… bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Katrina Benefits Coming
9/22/05 West Coast Office…
It was only a matter of time before I would have an opportunity to contribute to the Katrina hurricane relief efforts… first I took a local concert coming up Oct. 7th in Riverside being held at Landis Auditorium at Riverside Community College.

And then yesterday I got a call about doing a bigger event actually somewhere in Mississippi. This one? Is sponsored by NBC T.V., the Clear Channel, and VH1 and will be aired nationally I believe. Interesting, we are playing on the same stage with Tim McGraw, Three Doors Down, Kid Rock, ToTo, Lynard Skinnard, Ted Nugent… and others…it appears that we will be the only representation from the “gospel” music side of the fence. This was a simple result of our Peavey guitar endorsements and the fact that Ricky B has been so involved with other sponsored artists I think… they will be flying the NehoSoul Band in to Mississippi for the concert on November the 6th . I’m sure we’ll be giving you updates on the progress of that happening… a chance for us to bring “Christmas” Early…

Keep Coming back… Bryan D.

Nifty Noodles/ Merry Early Christmas
9/21/05 San Diego, CA
Maranatha Chapel attendees were the first to buy and hear live performance of songs from the NeoSoul Christmas project. Oh my it went very well. I was in a great mood probably because I had new material to introduce. I already heard from people who saw the mini concert on line at Maranatha’s web site broadcast. I forgot about that part.

I sung two songs from the Mercy project and then lauched into “This Christmas”, “Peace”, and “What A Wonderful World”… it was the best mini set I’ve ever done I think…

My voice was in fine form for a change and my disposition was just as good… hey it’s a miracle!... I was so prepared that I finished the set 10 minutes early! Pastor Ray… asked me for another song… so I had every one stand and sing “Clap Your Hands”… it was the liveliest crowd I’ve played for at Maranatha Chapel… maybe 600 there for the Wednesday night Bible study.

Like I’ve said before… Maranatha Chapel is a second home.. it feels like family down there at that church… I see a lot of the same people regularly. Sales of the Christmas project were very good. A good sign I think of the possibility of an early Christmas.

I was also presented with chocolate covered marshmallows and given a stack of biker t shirts from La Mesa fire dept. by a couple I talked to after the concert. Someone bought my latte at the local coffee shop, bought trinkets at the bookstore at 50 % off and sold them Christmas CD’s while I was there. I also had volunteers run my product to perfection.

Sound was so good that I “tipped” the churches sound man for his effort.

O.K. So there’s that…. Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Straight Thru to Havasu...
9/18/05 Lake Havasu, AZ
I rode my motorcycle to this gig in what is now the longest ride I’ve ever attempted, 247 miles of desert (one way). Lake Havasu City is on the Colorado River and it is a jewel in the rough… so I invited my biker friend Kenny Metcalf and a new sound engineer named Hilmar ? ( I can’t pronounce or spell his last name) to join me on the ride. Hilmar is an escaped Norwegian. Has a Steve McQueen edge to him… and rides a BMW Hybrid we named “Gretta”…and you’ve seen pictures of Kenny’s bright red VTX show bike. So we were off the day before the gig to make an adventure out of a regular concert date. We had no idea how much adventure there was gonna be.

The Ride out was great… through Palm Springs and the giant Wind turbines, past the famous Joshua Tree and 29 Palms… it was another cool September Saturday… around 95 degrees. After “topping off” at the last chance for gas, we were about thirty miles outside 29 Palms on the Highway 63 where you quickly find yourself incredibly alone in the desert . We stopped in the middle of the road parked our bikes and took pictures standing next to em with 100 miles of two lane in the background.

After the fun of wilderness pic’s it was all out hard riding across the open desert floor, salt flats to the north and treeless mountain ranges to the south and east. The desert is starting to show signs of green in the sage brush. There are signs of recent flooding and drifts of pure sand at every dip along the side of the road. The sand looks wonderfully sifted and soft until a gust of wind throws it across you bare arms and you understand the meaning of “sand blasting”. It was over a hundred miles of deserted road mostly with a lonely railroad crossing once or twice along the way .. and one burned out abandoned Gas station… after an hour of this I was just looking for any signs of life… maybe a popsicle stand!

Bryan, Hilmar, & Kenny on the Arizona - California Border

Didn’t find popsicles till we reached the California border. I called Ray Carter the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Lake Havasu… he’d already left on his motorcycle to meet us in Parker to ride up with us along the Colorado River… we reached the intersection in Parker at exactly the same time… and gassed up again saying hi to a girl in the station who’s “mom remembers Bryan Duncan”. I introduced Ray Carter to Kenny Metcalf and Hilmar and without much fanfare we rode together up to Lake Havasu with Ray and his oldest son.

Oh my the Colorado River is a gorgeous sight. Pure blue water snaking through the harsh landscape. The desert floor has given way to wonderful barren red rock scapes and a windier black ribbon of asphalt. We pass Parker Dam and a trailor park beach side of the Colorado with palm trees and the works… brought a new dream to me of “living in a van down by the River”….thirty one miles later we’re at Chili’s restaurant with Rich and Veronica Davis… my webmaster and his wife… and in the conversations comes a new discovery.

Pastor Ray Carter of Calvary Chapel Lake Havasu City and Kenny Metcalf…. ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER!!!! They have never met before today… but through talking about a cousin they had “with the same name”… discovered their cousins both lived in the same town too… turns out it was the same guy… a worship leader they both knew. It was one of those distant things… “my mothers sister married your dad’s brother”… kind of thing… “Wow, I used to sell dope to your Aunt Pat” laughs Ray Carter the reformed dealer turned preacher…. And the sad family history began to unfold 8)… and phone calls were made to several relatives for the next several hours.

Now I had invited Kenny on this particular gig to have him help out with product sales as Kenny has been unemployed for a while now as a result of a “terminal” illness that I can’t pronounce either. But because of his mounting medical expenses I wanted to at least try to help him out where I could. And low and behold he finds lost relatives in the process… interesting coincidence… or perhaps “a big God”… as Ray put it.

I had three Sunday morning services to sing for.. and between the second and third service… o.k. kinda during the sermon of the second service 8)… I was outside walking around the block with Hilmar talking about making sound adjustments… and as we are coming around to the back of the building through a vacant lot I notice a small fire in a fenced off parking lot behind the church. It is the property of St Vincent De Paul's used clothing drop off.. there are hundreds of cardboard boxes.. waiting there to be processed for thrift stores.

By the time I called 911 the fire had gone from one small box to six larger boxes and was a full blaze with a huge plume of black smoke…”where is the fire located” the operator asked…” oh crap, I don’t know… I’m just visiting here”… couldn’t find a street sign…I read off the name of the store and said “you should be able to see the smoke anywhere in the city at this point”…. Just then the wind shifted away from Calvary Chapel just 100 yards away where the second service was in progress…a couple guys went in to ask that cars be moved away from the fence… the building was partially effected in the fire but it was being wrapped up by the end of the third service. So inbetween sets I was outside filling out the report as I was the “RP” . I think it means “reporting person”… Rich Davis laughed later… it might have meant “responsible party”!


Building as it was about 3/4 involved


Bryan talking with the Lake Havasu fire fighters as water shoots overhead!

I probably would have been a suspect cause I was on the call nearly as soon as the fire started. But to my good fortune several of the firefighters recognized me from a previous concert I had done in town… and I took pictures with Thomas Hutter the fire investigator, wearing one of their fire helmets. I think my son (the firefighter paramedic in San Diego would have been proud).


Bryan and Thomas Hutter, Fire Investigator and Bryan Duncan Fan!

O.k. this noodle has turned out way too long…. We left after a great Sunday night concert at the High School where I played for two hours without airconditioning…and still got a reasonably long ovation. We left early to ride back to California and we wasted no time doing 100 mph in the wide open desert on a few stretches. I’m exhausted.

I donated a percentage of the product money to Kenny Metcalf and I was out given by the church itself as they contributed money to his health expenses… all in all it turned out more satisfying than anyone could have imagined.

O.k. So there’s another adventure in the books… Bryan D

Nifty Noodles/ Christmas Release party...
9/15/05 West Coast Office…
We’re gonna have a Christmas Release party for “A NehoSoul Christmas” at BB KINGS in the Universal City Walk, in L.A. between 7&8 p.m on October the 22nd Invite yer friends we’ll have a good time with the whole NehoSoul Band.

We’ll be playing mostly our regular stuff but we’ll have the Christmas record there on sale! And we’ll be signing copies… and maybe we’ll have time to work up a song or two from the project.

This is a step of faith kinda for me.. I just picked up the phone and happened to get the agent for BB KINGS on the first ring to the restaurant… I was expecting the run around and there was none… this is something I’ve wanted to do for some time as it gives us credibility in the regular R&B and Soul world. I had to guarantee an audience of 250 people so please come out if you can and bring two people…I’m sure we’ll make the quota… o.k. pass the info on as much as you can… thanks

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